From my experimenting after having the same problem it seems to stem from computer performance as I was able to load the game fine on 1.3 on a more powerful machine. It also seems to be related to how many mods you have loaded as I was able to launch it fine up to a certain number of mods, then anything over caused it to crash.
Update: with the Better Loading mod active I was able to see the point it crashed on which was something along the lines of "play data loading"
Update: with the Better Loading mod active I was able to see the point it crashed on which was something along the lines of "play data loading"